The Narwhal part 12

The next step in the process of this piece is to hand color the proofs I took over the past week. Got up to the Studio shortly past 11:00 am, and once again the place was nearly empty. Worked my way to my space downstairs.  Felt like a day for jazz, so I put on a disc collecting favorite pieces from three albums that Dexter Gordon recorded for Blue Note in the early to mid 60's.  Had a color plan (not surprisingly, a lot of blue), but had to see how it all worked out.

At various times in the process of creating this piece I have turned to the internet for information.  Images of narwhals, environment, etc.  Went back again this week and used some of the findings in creating my color palette for this piece.  For example, they generally have a typical whale color, but with dark mottling on the top, and white underneath, a common pigmentation pattern in creatures that live in water, making them harder to see from above and from below in that particular environment.  Some of this went into my block design.  Another thing I wasn't sure of was the eyes.  The eyes have standard mammalian design (after all they evolved from something like a hippopotamus, like all whales), but in all the photos I found of actual narwhals in the environment, the eyes appear to be completely black.

Took my test proof out of the drying rack, the one I did a repair to the other day.  The black ink appeared to be dry, but any time part of my hand rested on the proof I ended up with a hint of black ink, so I tried not to let that happen often.  In images that involve landscape and distances, artists have learned to use atmospheric perspective.  The famous "purple mountains majesty" that we've all heard about is not about the actual mountains, that up close are the standard colors of rocks- browns and grays mostly.  However from a great distance, they do appear to be lighter and more purplish.  For that matter, so do forests of trees.  This is due to miles and miles of air between the viewer and the subject.  While we tend to think of air as invisible, it is a gas with substance and it refracts a tiny bit of light from the cool end of the spectrum, adding a blue-purple tint to anything far away.  Over the past several centuries artists have learned to make use of this phenomenon, that cooler colors seem to sit back, while warmer, and darker more intense colors (less air) seem to sit forward.  Water can have a more extreme effect.  While up close all water appears to be transparent, it also refracts and reflects a little blue (the blue surface on the oceans and great seas is more about a reflection of the blue sky above) so that the dominant color under the sea seems to be bluish. With water being denser than air, this effect can be magnified.  Before doing anything else, I tested various paints I had on palettes in my kit, a mix of straight tube colors and mixed tints and shades.  Some might be part of this new piece.

For the main color of the whale, I went with a pale gray, a common whale color.  Started by mixing a little chinese white with some pthalo blue, but the blue overwhelmed the white quickly (as it tends to do) so I added a little bit of permanent orange, which brought it to a cool gray.  That would do, put that everywhere.  A very pale wash of the pthalo for the animal's horn, a darker version of the same for the underside of the iceberg, and a wash of the phthalo mixed with white for the part of the iceberg going straight up, the lightest thing in the image.

A solid black eye would look too much like one of the large spots on the mottled back, and I had cut the block to have a white and pupil breakdown in the eye.  Colored it with a dark wash of black, giving it a dark look overall, but still allowing the pupil to be noticed in the dark eye.

The surrounding water is all washes of indigo, which is made from a mix of blue and black pigment.  The one thing without a bit of blue is the streak of muddy dirt on the ocean's floor, done with some burnt sienna.

And that completed my first pass at this narwhal color image.  This is a pretty busy weekend in my family, so I won't touch the next one until next week.  Meanwhile I'll look at what was done here and decide if I like it as it is or if there needs to be any changes before I get to the second colored proof.

Home for a quick lunch and then out again for afternoon errands. That eventually brought me down to Manasquan.  Picked up some produce from the garden, and also my mother offered me the ad for my classes from the printed version of the Coast Star.  Has all the basic information about the classes- dates, times, materials provided, location, everything but my name, which is on the website which people will have to go to to register, unless they just send in a check, an option they are given.  There will likely be more ads as we get closer, but I'm curious to see if this one brings in any business.